


Blue Amber

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU setting, F/M, Taxidermist Dave, non sburb AU - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-19
Updated: 2012-09-19
Packaged: 2017-11-14 14:01:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It started as a hobby, as something you could languish time into (because now you had too much time on your hands and no way of getting rid of it) but soon enough it started to coagulate into a giant solid clot in the middle of your life, pooling over into what had formerly been your rudimentary photo studio and shoving the diffuser and stacks of photo paper and empty trays in favor of boxes of needles and brushes and fleshing knives and bactericides and glass eyes and a handful of artificial tongues."</p><p>In which Dave is a twenty-something who finds solace in the field of taxidermy, and Rose is a semi-successful novelist who tries to help him come to terms with what his life has become.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blue Amber

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spxrx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spxrx/gifts).



> My first time writing Dersecest! For my friend (captaincrapster@tumblr.com) for his birthday. 
> 
> Semi NSFW but there's no real actual sex involved.
> 
> Enjoy!

Rose had aspired to be a writer, had majored in English and hammered out her thesis on the most macabre and grotesque of eighteenth century American fiction but had never quite found a solid audience without degrading herself to either Lovecraftian knockoffs or para-teen romances. You always tell her she should transform shoggoths into the next supernatural love-interest de _l’année_ and make bank on the hidden cache of teenaged girls with tentacle fetishes out there but she always fixes you with a wry look and a thousand yard stare. 

Your older brother—same mom, same dad, so it counts—got gigs commissioning robots for some folk and suddenly landed himself a high paying job in biotech engineering. Not bad for someone who used to dabble in online puppet porn. You always wonder how exactly he managed to cover his data trails from that so well, or maybe the company just doesn’t give a fuck and values his technological genius way too much to bring him in under suspicion of peddling plush perversion. 

You, on the metaphorical third hand, had gotten out of undergrad but hadn’t wanted to sit around on the philosophic laurels crushed by the heel of Real World and Getting A Job. You’d sloughed around a couple of retail and entry level positions, mixing music commissions for rent and food and clothes and booze and scraping by the monetary bone whenever bills came due. 

Then there’d been a half-baked dream of attending one of those Caribbean med schools and becoming a doc, which gave way to becoming a forensics pathologist because hey, you liked dead things, seemed pretty logical to hop from pinning beetles and purchasing preserved pig fetuses from a slew of dubious eBay sellers to slitting open human bodies and figuring out what exactly made them stop ticking. 

But that dream, like everything else, had never really had enough hot air to rise off the ground, and you continued to bog around the lowest rung until by chance you’d discovered something that drove your mind and hands in a way that music did when you were a kid. 

It started as a hobby, as something you could languish time into (because now you had too much time on your hands and no way of getting rid of it) but soon enough it started to coagulate into a giant solid clot in the middle of your life, pooling over into what had formerly been your rudimentary photo studio and shoving the diffuser and stacks of photo paper and empty trays in favor of boxes of needles and brushes and fleshing knives and bactericides and glass eyes and a handful of artificial tongues. You keep the safelight out and on, though—the amber light washes out the contrast of the muscle and blood because even after so long the sight of it churns up something visceral and gross in your stomach and just. No. 

It started as a hobby, but it soon grew beyond that. Your idle hands were now busy threading through hide and bleaching skulls and carving foam for the innards of your projects. 

Some of it, you did for a living. Families and singles who wanted their dead pets immortalized into stuffing and chemical, poised faithfully at their side for all of eternity. Most of it, however, went towards filling your boredom and occupying your thoughts. 

Because the thoughts you fall back to without it keeping you busy Now that your dreams of becoming a doctor or something like it were a festering fleshpile in the past, you looked back on them with scorn and anger and yes the occasional flit of jealousy, of regret at what could have been.  

_Doctor, Doctor, Doctor Strider now without a practice without a place without a face without a niche, without a carved out corner of prosperity—_

Now your degree hangs on the wall in the kitchen from a single nail and at a slight tilt. One corner of Goodwill crown molding points towards the heart of the linoleum—dubbed as such after a smear of coronary offal hit the floor back when you used the space as your impromptu “studio” and you’d lost your grip on the heart of an unfortunate sparrow. 

In fact, right now, you’re back in the avian department working on a juvenile crow you found laying out on the sidewalk on a trip back from the liquor store. You even had a pair of baby blue eyes custom ordered for this project—they were much more expensive than the standard black but you always prided yourself on accuracy. You’ve prepared the skin and carved the base of the form and are in the process of putting it all together. You have one of the eyes in your hand, a bit of clay stuck on the back in order to attach it properly, when suddenly there’s a rustling creak of the door opening behind you. A dim shaft of light from the  falls on the wall that you’re facing. 

“Dave.”

You must have left the front door unlocked, because you didn’t hear her knock. You don’t have to turn around to see because you’d know that voice anywhere—it’s Rose, sister through a drunken mother and a couple of deadbeat sperm donors. 

You turn briefly around from where you’re working, latex fingers fiddling with the eye in your palm. 

A heather scarf wrapped too taught around her neck, its ends dripping limp against her chest. It would be swimming between her tits if Rose had any to speak of. A black dress with indigo accents, black tights melting into black flats—covering over every inch of skin with even the ivory of her face marred by smears of black on her lips and eyes. 

“You understand, Dave, that darkrooms hardly have a practical use outside of nostalgic value anymore, correct? Not that you tend to use it for its intended purpose.”

You look through her, turn back around.

“Mmmm.”

You don’t know why she came here. You’re not in the mood nor do you have the need for her particular brand of amateur psychotherapy at this point. She’s tried to work out the knot of your many a time before, and it bothers you that you think she’s got you all worked out

“I can’t stay very long. Perhaps we should sit down? Turn some lights on? It’s been awhile since we’ve been able to talk one on one—Mother worries, you don’t call either of us anymore. Well, she worries whenever she is coherent enough to speak with me.”

You snort, turning your head slightly to look at her out of the corner of your eye. 

She’s got it all put together, hasn’t she? Every time she comes here you can _sense_ her getting more judgmental and pitying of you and what you’ve become, even if she’s _hardly_ better off than you are. 

“I worry about you too, Dave. And I am the one coherent enough to listen.” 

You turn around completely, ready to give her once and for all a piece of your mind, tell her to get the hell out of your apartment, but then she’s right there, the soft click of her shoes bring her even closer. 

“Rose.” You say, and your voice sounds so raspy and old, so unused. Creaking dust like a newly opened tomb. 

You start as shapes of white suddenly move out of the ambered dark but its her hands, phantom and disembodied but still warm as they cup your cheeks. One finger presses at the crease of your lips and you can nearly taste the chemical of freshly painted nail. It’s followed by the thick taste of her lips against yours.  

The surprise of it causes you to lose your grip on the marbled eye in your hand and it falls clattering to the floor. You hear the sound of it rolling disappear as you grab a hold of Rose and press yourself closer to her in turn. 

Your knees give out and you take her down with you, pulling her by the taunt scarf and she nearly chokes, but then you’re pushing forward until she lies down on her back. Her spine curls up in an arch between her shoulders and tailbone as you bend over her. You plant one hand beside her head, the other drifting to her scarf, her dress, her bra—

And she’s just like you, she’s just like you underneath all the covering and clothes—she’s pale and white and thing and flat and skinny just like you and it’s like when you tear the fur and skin away from your subjects and they’re all red meat and bone underneath, all the same, all the same—

You only touch your camera nowadays to photograph progression shots of your projects, and Rose is morphing into a project before your eyes so you grab it off the table by its strap. 

You don’t want to fuck her—even your degenerate morals wont let you stick it in your stepsister—but you do want these pictures of her bare and barren and amber alabaster against the darkroom floor. 

You crouch over her—fully clothed and only half hard at the sight—and poise the camera at her face, and she looks surprised but does nothing to stop you as you begin to take photo after photo, documenting the slightest change in her expression and the barest flutter of eyelash or curious part of lips, every last detail and disparity.

You continue at a flurried place for awhile, before you slowly, slowly, slowly begin to grind a halt, your finger sore and rubbed red against the greasing camera button until it slips from your hands and bouncing off of Rose’s stomach before clattering to the floor. 

Because—

What are you doing?

What are you, what

What happened?

_A doctor who can’t fix, a bachelor who yearns to be a pair, a master of nothing and no one._

Rose levers herself up on her elbows, eyebrows quirked up in concern. 

_A transient sick and selfish and unable to stand._

“Dave..?” 

You put your head down, pushing your forehead in the bony path between her peaked tits and exhale a sob. Your fingers twist in her hair and she takes in a gasp, unsure if this is turning sexual or not but after a moment she realizes you’re starting to cry and her arms snake up and over your back. She softly rubs her hands over each muscle, and like a calming salve they cause them to relax, one by one. 

After awhile, Rose gets up, gently easing you off and beside her. The light turns off, putting the room into darkness. She comes up beside you and you start, but let her pull you down and back into the space between her breasts. One hand threads into your hair while the other grasps your own. She rubs your forefinger gently with her thumb as she kisses you gently on the temple. It smells different—-she must have rubbed the paint off of her lips. 

You’re grateful for that.


End file.
